From the Softball Blog Vault: Softball/Baseball Averages

Editor’s note: The following post was published May 15^th, 2010 on a previous blog I once had. I’m republishing it now because A) I think it’s an interesting read and B) it’s something worth revisiting. I’m going to be writing a post soon about how the amount of .500 and .600 seasons have gone up in recent years. I’ll want to compare how the softball/baseball averages comparison has changed during this period.

 

Softball/MLB Averages- The Mystery Is Solved

Whenever I explained how batting under .500 in slow pitch softball isn't completely embarrassing, I told people how batting .500 is like batting .300 in the major leagues. I never knew if this was really true or not, but it seemed right. I was bored at work one day, so I decided to actually figure out how softball averages equate to MLB averages. I decided to create a chart of batting average conversions using last year’s softball statistics and the last 10 years of major league baseball averages. Here’s how it works:



Step One:

There are 208 players in the Marlboro Mens’ Softball league. We only have statistics on the 180 returning players. Since the 28 non returning players are considered unknown variables(since we don’t know if they overall had high averages or low averages), we’ll just assume that their data falls in line with the 180 players returning this year. Out of these 180 players:

73 batted .450
61 batted .475
30 batted .500
16 batted .525
8 batted .550
4 batted .575
2 batted .600

I turned each of these numbers into a ratio. For instance, since 30 out of 180 players batted .500, that’s 1 in 6. 16 out of 180 players batting .525 means that one in 11.25 players batted .525

Step Two:

To find the MLB equivalent, I needed to first figure out how many hitters are in a lineup. Since there are 9 hitters in an AL lineup (14 teams) and 8 hitters in an NL lineup (16 teams), that gives us 254 MLB players (14x9) + (16x8). Now it was time to apply the softball ratios to MLB statistics. For example:

Since 1 in 6 softball players batted .500 last year, we divide 254(the total number of MLB hitters in a lineup) by 6. Since 254 divided by 6 is 42( using the regular rounding system), whatever average was 42nd best in baseball is the equivalent of batting .500.

Step Three:

In 2009, the 42nd best average was .300. How amazing is that! I always just randomly figured that batting .500 in softball was like bating .300 in the major leagues. The only problem is I didn’t want to only use one year of MLB statistics to figure out these equivalent averages. Therefore, I repeated this system for the last 10 years of MLB statistics. This did not take as long as it seems. So for the equivalent of batting .500 in softball, I wrote down what the 42nd best batting average was in baseball for each of the last 10 years. Then I took the average of this number. Over this 10 year period it turns out that batting .500 in softball is really like batting .297 in the majors.

Finally, here are all the equivalent averages I came up with:

Softball Average                       Major League Average

600                                          .341

.575                                         .331

.550                                         .320

.525                                         .310

.500                                         .297

.475                                         .288

.450                                         .285

Except for the difference between batting .450 and .475, there seems to be around a one point gain in the MLB equivalent average for every 2.5 points gained in your softball average. Sticking with that ratio would come in handy if you batted .535. Since it’s 10 points higher than .525, you could approximate that the MLB average would be around .314. This also means batting .700 is the equivalent to batting .381 in the majors. It's an inexact science, but I think it's pretty close.

The only problem is we only have one year’s worth of softball average to base these numbers. I’ll definitely see how the system works with two years worth of softball averages. I also happened to figure out that the softball equivalent to batting .300 in the major leagues is batting .506 in softball.

Let me know what you think. I'm pretty confident this is the best way to figure out these numbers.